As most advertisers are becoming aware in recent days, the ramp-up of Facebook’s response to user privacy changes coming with iOS 14 is going to cause a lot of problems for advertisers/businesses industry-wide.
Facebook has been very vocal in letting everyone know that Apple has made these decisions “unilaterally” and without consulting industry professionals on the impact their changes will be making. The bulk of their changes boil down to App Store Changes on how apps and services such as Facebook will be allowed to utilize their platform. An example is that anyone who wants to list their app in the App Store will have to make changes to comply with data practices among other changes in order for Apple to list.
Facebook says this is going to greatly impact businesses in ways that could affect their ability to survive. Free or cheap apps and services will potentially shift to paid models or increase their premiums to adapt in order to survive.
In a nutshell, things are going to get a bit nuts.
Facebook has released a few seminars so far that address some of these concerns and their response. As it is pretty early yet, they expect lots to evolve, but the main thing to keep in mind is CHANGE IS COMING!
Here are a few key insights on the latest seminar on how the iOS14 changes will affect Facebook and their response:
Conversions
- Advertisers will be limited to 8 events to optimize towards. While advertisers can still create more than 8 events, only the top 8 will be used in optimization purposes on Facebook.
- All events can still be used for targeting/website custom audiences but only available in “partial reporting”
- Advertisers don’t need to make website changes, but only need to optimize their events in Events Manager (EM)
- Facebook will continue to offer limited targeting & measurement use cases for events not in the top 8.
- After Apple’s implementation of IOS14 changes, users will be prompted into or out of the data collection changes. If a user opts out, FB will receive info on ONE event (ie, if they don’t purchase, the next prioritized event will be returned) so it’s important to prioritize events carefully.
- Rest assured, if you don’t optimize your events in time, at the beginning of the IOS14 implementation, Facebook will default-rank events for advertisers if they haven’t already done so. They also mention they will create additional events you may not currently be tracking for you if you don’t have 8 in your EM.
- When reprioritizing events after the launch, you won’t be able to optimize again for 3 days. Any impacted Ad Sets will be paused during processing of the change and it is up to advertisers to restart them.
- If an event is deleted, ads impacted will be stopped.
For advertisers using “Value Optimization,” This feature will be moved to EM and advertisers should check to make sure this feature is turned on. If using Value Sets (minimum of 4 sets), advertisers must audit their sets because they will take up conversion events (of the 8 available)
Targeting
7 day click is the new default window, which Will affect retargeting/prospecting performance.
Things advertisers do:
- Look at audience sizes and potentially combine/broaden as limited visibility will cause blending/overlap more frequent.
- Optimization and liquidity best practices to be reviewed (to be googled**)
- Excluding past purchasers/converters may no longer be possible.
Measurement
- With smaller reporting windows, we will expect fewer conversions reported both based on window and limited visibility on data.
- Demographics WILL GO AWAY (age, gender, etc)
- On-site metrics still available (Clicks, etc)
- Changes expected to take place mid-Jan
Action Items for Advertisers:
- Verify Domains
- Plan/Optimize 8 priority events
- Check attribution windows to makes sure they get shifted to the new standard
- Audiences (combine/broaden)
- Check bidding strategies
- Familiarize yourself with Conversions API (FB says this is the future when cookies become obsolete)
While this isn’t everything you need to know, it’s a good place to start! Here are some resources on the seminars if you want to check them out for more information.
https://go.facebookinc.com/sessions-for-success-webinar-hub
https://register.gotowebinar.com/recording/4614937686569260815 (most recent recording, register to view)
